 Man all right take heed. I think what a what a great what a great title What a great theme for us to have here for this conference to take heed and you know, honestly I was just thinking about this, you know take heed. I Understand what that is now, but I can remember when I first heard that term take heed And I think for the most part I understood what that what they were trying to tell me You know, I think I understood that term take heed, but I was kind of like why are you talking like that? What does that mean take heed you take heed? I don't know, but but here, you know, um Really what this means to take heed means this it means to listen and pay attention to focus or to concentrate and We see this kind of extortation By Solomon when he writes and he writes to in the book of Proverbs to his children primarily and this is what Solomon says Listen, he says this. He says my son hear the instruction of a father. He says my son receive my words He says also hear the instruction of a father and then he goes on to say my son give attention to my words My son pay attention to my wisdom You'll see that that's all these the times that Solomon says this to his children or to his son He's really what he's saying. He's saying this in the first five verses And he goes on even in the rest of that book to continue to say my son or refer to my children and he wants them to pay attention He wants them to listen listen with the intent of gaining You see and that's really what God wants from all of us is that we would all Listen that we would all receive From him from his word with an intention that God I want to receive from you I just don't want to just Have it go one ear and out the next but Lord I truly want to receive everything that you have for me You know when I think of this I think of you know, um You know, sometimes you go to a carnival or you go to an outreach or you go and you go somewhere and they As you go through those doors and those gates they hand you a little ticket, right? And you might get one ticket or two tickets, whatever if you cheat, maybe you can get five I don't know So they're called raffle tickets, right? And you get those raffle tickets and then when it comes time for the raffle because you see what they're raffling off It might it might be a brand new bike or something like that or whatever, you know And okay, they're going to give the raffle numbers and once when they start giving the raffle numbers It's always every I look around and everybody's always paying attention to the numbers You know zero zero nine eight and you're like, oh good so far, right? And then you get the last two numbers Seven you're like, okay, you know, then the person always takes his time when he wants to get the last number, right? Number four, you know, they're like, oh man, I was so close But the thing is is that we're listening because well, we want to win that prize We want to we want to see if we got that that winning ticket You know my heart and I pray that Right now this moment this whole conference this whole this whole time that we're spending together that that's What we're all doing right now is we're listening with the intent that God's calling you If you're not saved God's calling you To repent of your sin if you're living in sin. He's calling your number He wants you he loves you You see and so here in this section right here in first Corinthians in chapter number 10 We're going to take a look at this these these two verses verses number 11 and 10 And I pray that we would truly take heed. So let's look at these verses first Corinthians Chapter 10 verses 11 and 12 And this is what the apostle paul writes. He says now all these things happen to them as examples and they were written for our admonition Upon whom the ends of the ages were come have come Therefore he says therefore and let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall Therefore if you think you stand you better watch out So let's take a look at this verse 11 number 11 the example the example that was given You know holland he he spoke about that with the children of visro And how the children of visro really what they were they were bowing down to other gods and and everything and they began to Compromise and they suffered the consequence of their of their compromise. They suffered You know, they had to deal with uh with the consequences of their behavior of their decisions and all the things that they were doing We see and and uh, and we should always You know learn from other people's examples because here, you know, that's what the apostle paul is doing here in korentians He's saying hey, listen look what the children of visro did and this is what happened and and you know, this is the example This is the example and so we should always be learning from other people's examples Whether they're mistakes or good things and here he's pointing out some of their mistakes And uh, we also need to look at the examples in in our own personal lives and the mistakes that we had made In our own personal lives as we are living life either that's either As a born-again believer or even before we got saved or or whatever look at those Things and the decisions and the stuff that you've done in your life as examples In the bible we have plenty examples To look at as far as mistakes I think of king david king david and his mistakes You know, um, he was the apple of god's eye He had a passion for god and and he wrote a lot of the the old testament in the bible And we we refer to those and we we look at these prayers and we look at the songs that he wrote there and songs and Everything else in other places But he was also he had made some mistakes in his life as well You know some of the mistakes that we can think of or that we know of the major mistake is there with besheba You know when he was there and his army was out to war And it was during that time of the year that war was going on and and what did king david do is like All right, you know what I got things kind of covered the you know the army knows what they're doing and you know I can kind of chill out this season and so he you know He kind of just sends his army out and what does everybody else or what does he do as he's everyone else is gone He goes up on the roof, you know and and he's just kind of checking things out and he starts to check out besheba You know, what's up with that? You know, hey call her over here. You know, he has sex with her They they they he has a child with her and then he tries to cover it up by calling uraya You know, hey uraya and uraya was a man of god. He's he was a man of character. He was a man with integrity Oh man, I wish I can be like him, you know, because that's who he was and that's my desire That's that should be all of our desire is to be men and women with character and integrity and all that we do Well, that's who uraya was And and so he gets called over by david and and david says hey, you know wants to you know Go home and and chill out man, you know hang out with your wife a little bit And you know, he's trying to cover this up in hopes that his That that uraya will go into the house to his own house and have sex with his wife And then they can cover it up the whole thing. I go look you're having a baby. Okay You know, but uraya wasn't having that. He's like, I can't do this You know, and he gets him then david gets him drunk and everything and uraya doesn't buy in He doesn't buy into this and so what else what does david do? He he he signs his death certificate is what he does He sends uraya out with his own death certificate And he gets it to the general the general they listen. All right. Well uraya You know, that's where I want you to go and once uraya is there The plans are has everybody pulled back and have uraya get killed over there You see and king david thinks that you've got this covered up See what a huge mistake He thinks he's got it covered up and he thinks that he can get away with things and like, okay, you know, um, I'm good now You know, no one's gonna know See we might feel that way sometimes in our own personal lives like oh, no one's gonna know No one's gonna know about this no one's gonna know about that No one's gonna know what i'm looking at on my internet No one's gonna know that you know, when i'm going out of town I can you know crack open a couple of beers, you know and and uh, just hang out You know sit there in at the park and drink that 40 ounce or whatever. I don't know You see when we think that no one finds out that no one knows these things And you know what sometimes people don't know anything and that's just how it is People, you know, you can pull the wool over people's eyes, you know It happens But you can't do that with god We can't do that with god and god loves us so much my friends Listen god loves us so much that he will reveal your sin He will He cannot hide your sin It says there are numbers be sure your sin will find you out He'll get busted man And god will god will present that that sin in your life not only to you know To yourself but also to other people because god wants you to repent of it You see and and sometimes we think of that passage and we think of those things and and people who are living their life in compromise Or people that are living their life, you know, not one not wanting anything to do with god They'll they'll hear that like well, what a crude god if god's got to love Why would he put you out like that? You know why god would do something like that because he loves you and he knows that the wages of sin is death And he doesn't want you to die. He doesn't want you to experience that eternal death He wants us he wants you and i to to come to faith in him. Amen That's what he wants And so he says you know what i'm going to present your your sin right here Not only in front of you but in front of everybody else so that you have one of two choices you will either repent of it And turn from it and begin to live a life of repentance and begin to live a life That's going to bring glory and honor to god or you're going to reject it You're going to rebel against god and you're going to go live your life in darkness. It is your choice You see god has given to us that free choice But we have to deal with it one way or the one way or another And if we deal with it now if you and i if we deal with sin This the issue of sin in our lives now here today We won't have to deal with it when we're face to face with god and god say hey Depart from me for i never knew you you worker of iniquity You see god has given us opportunities and opportunities. Well, you see that opportunity david was presented with because nathan confronted him And he said david is because of this sin. You're this guy You got to repent and he did david did repent of it. He changed he turned You see he turned and he repented and asked god to forgive him You see so that we have we see that example there of david and what he did also i think of also samson samson and and his life, you know and and he had that You know he had taken an oath, you know and and not to cut his hair and um, Then excuse me the nazarene the nazarene oath And you know he didn't cut his hair and he had all this strength and you know He was he was there just you know tearing up the philistines. That's what he was doing Even you know animals and everything you know do was crazy, right? And uh what happens is is he he he compromises He compromises With with a woman You see and this woman's there and then hey come on samson. Tell me your secret What's really going come on baby? You know trying to you know trying to butter him up, you know come on. I know he's just telling me You know who I am come on. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna backstab you like this. Well, she did You see And then the secret came out and the philistines the philistines are upon you and he couldn't shake them off He couldn't shake them off and then they mocked them and they they put them in prison They they mocked them all because he compromised he lived the life of compromise Let me tell you something my friends too many people that go to church sunday go to church on the midweek service Are living their life in compromise? Oh, I'm good. I want the church man I want the church. I even put two bucks in that bucket You know, we got a burrito after church, you know, that's not good. Well, dude. Look how you're living your life in compromise You see and then this whole world that we're surrounded in my friends is wants to wants to have us to compromise You know, I got a phone call just even yesterday yesterday afternoon someone comes to our church there hope alive and It was this dilemma that he was engaged in you know, and you know He had a he had this conversation with someone there at his at his workplace and you know And I don't know whatever happened. Well, he's he got called in by his supervisors and his supervisors were like Hey, so, um, are you saying these things or are you talking about God? He's like, well, you know Yeah, I talk about Jesus when someone asked me about my faith because you know He's got a cross that he wears there at his work and he says we have someone makes a reference to it or Or someone just asked me. Hey, you know, what church do you go to and he goes? I begin to share my faith Well, the to make that long story. I'll start He and I'm getting suspended from his job because he's sharing his faith and he called me up He means like man. What do I do? What do I do? Do I do I go in there? Okay, and I'll never talk about Jesus again. And what do I do? I told him no, man Don't compromise Don't compromise. This is a test that the Lord is allowing you to go through right now. You stand strong though church has been compromised enough Why do we want to cower in the face of those kinds of of you know, um temptation even to reject or to say, okay I won't talk about Jesus, but it's not only in that sense It's compromise also with the things of this world that will appeal to our flesh drinking getting high Looking at pornography having sex outside of marriage You know behaving crudely and rudely and all these other things, you know the church people in the church compromising that too enough We need to stop that if you if you go to church and you say man, I love Jesus I'm a born-again believer in Jesus Christ and you are compromising. Let me encourage you stop it Just stop stop compromising Start living your life completely Dedicated and committed to Jesus Christ. He loves you and he's going to empower you to live that life that will bring honor to him That you won't want to compromise in your life You see because we compromise way too much in in our own lives and in the church. I believe You see and we see even also with Solomon and some of the the passages that I was talking about earlier And just those first five Chapters of proverbs we see the Solomon with all of his mistakes and bad decisions that he made He had a deep desire Solomon did he had a deep desire to admonish his children He had a passion. He had a deep desire to admonish his children. Listen to me Linda listen, Linda He wanted His children to listen. I want you to get this You see it's it's almost in my mind's eye. I can picture, you know, Solomon with his children You know just grabbing the sides of their heads and listen to me, you know You ever want someone to listen to you so bad you just want to listen to me. Hello. I'm right here But he's admonishing his children. What does admonish mean and admonish means to caution advice or counsel against something You see and so here we see in this in this uh in this verse right here It says now all these things happen to them as examples And they were written for our our admonition admonition Admonition, okay. Thank you Admonition Hey, I want to a continuation high school. Give me a break We called it Tracy Tech and shout out to Tracy Tech. All right All right, so he's Admonishing them, you know in that and so he's he's cautioning them, you know And and one of the neat things, you know in our ministry that some of the one of the things that I get to do is Is I get to go to high schools They're in the senate and a unified school district and you know When I I'm not from orange county or nothing like that and so when I when the lord first brought me there to orange county Um, I really, you know didn't know what the lord was doing in my life because I I was born again believer in jesus christ, you know, and and I was going to calvary chapel coast to mason I was like wow, you know trip out and you know, I was on parole and I was like looking around I was like man, I'm gonna go back to prison. My parole agent finds me out here, you know But here I am here in this place And then there was an opportunity to go out into the community and and to share You know and to and to share god's word and to to minister and to share the gospel And so as we go I started just observing the community there Observing especially even the youth that are there and and you know, I just felt compelled like man. These kids are lost These kids are they're living their life. They think to live their life to they got a they want to be a gang member They want to be a dope dealer. They just want to be hanging out in the streets. They want to do this They want to do that. It's like they want to mad dog everybody, you know It's like man They think they need jesus and so, you know, what we've been doing for these past several years now is we've been going to high schools We've been going to junior highs and and also the juvenile halls there in the orange county and and we go and we share We we talk about, you know, the gospel, of course, but one way that I found that really builds that bridge For these kids to begin to listen to the gospel of jesus christ as I share my testimony very briefly And I talk about, you know, the kind of stuff and the decisions that I made in my own life and and the consequences That I had to deal with because of those decisions and and because of the the the choices of life I I wanted to live in, you know, and I and I I'm desiring to admonish them to listen to me Listen, don't go down that road. You don't got to do all of that You know, there was this one time in particular That we're I was there in the juvenile hall and and you know, we're sharing the gospel and there's a friend a friend of mine Dave that he and I used to go in there and This one kid he was probably about 15 or 16 years old and and the the unit that we would go into there in the orange county Jails, it was called the j-mod and and in that particular mod right there The juveniles that were there were They you know, they were there for whether it was murder or attempted murder or something serious like that You know, so they were going to look at it really some serious time You know some serious crimes that they were dealing with and so as we were there You know, I remember this one kid, you know, he comes up to me and I'm sharing my heart with them You know sharing the gospel and just trying to he's like, you know, well, I don't need any of that I'm going to you know He's he starts to tell me that he's going to be like this shock collar in prison That he's going to do this and he's going to be this guy and he's going to grow up to be You know like this crazy guy inside of a prison cell and kind of inside the prison systems and everything And I'm looking at him and my heart's breaking Because he's really enjoying Telling me these things You know, he's really thinking that this is how he's going to live his life And this is what he's going to do and I'm like, you know The only thing I really told him I said that I go I forgot his name But I said man check this out dude. I go you're going to mind somebody man You're going to mind somebody and it's not going to it's not like how you think it is I told him you've been watching too many movies Because because it's not like that You know and and um You know, and I don't know what's going on with him right now, but I do know this I know he is in the system somewhere My prayer is that he remembers How some weird guy went into that jail cell years ago and it just admonished him to give his life to christ That that's not the way to live You see and so this is what our desire is when we go out and we share these things We want to admonish we want to use even our own examples of our own personal lives or examples even in the scriptures That the bible even shows out, you know points out don't live this way Don't do that. Look what they did and look at the consequences of they had to deal with you see And it's just and it's just bad, you know all these things And so when we give our examples of our own lives And all the consequences that we have to deal with our prayers and our hopes is that they don't live that way Is that they don't make those choices in life? You know me because we've all been there, you know, you some of us have kids I'm sure a lot of us probably most of us have kids We don't want our kids doing the same things that we did at one time. So we tell them. Hey listen. Don't do that Don't go down that road You know, you don't got to get high. You don't got to kick it with the homies, you know And it's not that homies. You don't have homie love or anything like that. It's just that man. They're lost Why do you want to hang out with people that are lost? You see and so with this example Here that that you know, we have it with king david example with solemn the example with with even samson You know the compromise and just living in sin and trying to cover it up and all these other things My friends listen, we should not be doing that We shouldn't be trying to live our own lives in compromise or you trying to cover things up because man God loves us so much that he's going to reveal it and you will have to deal with the consequences And my prayers that you'll deal with it with a repetitive heart that you Repented and you know what? I'm just going to deal with it in this way in with repentance with true repentance And then look here. He says in verse number 12 therefore let him who thinks he stands take he lest he fall So the example was given to us this example of the children of visceral, you know Say this is how this is what's going on and this is what they did and you know And you know thousands of people died and they were written for our admonition You know that we would pay attention that we would receive counsel from that that we wouldn't do that that we wouldn't live that way And he's saying so for him who's listening therefore let him who thinks he stands Let him who thinks he stands take heed listen carefully pay attention because you will fall If you're not paying attention if you thinking ah, man, that's not for me. I ain't tripping on any of that That dude's crazy. That's not going to happen to me take heed take heed Don't think that you got it all together There's not one person up here in this building that's got anything together really we don't got it all together Jesus has it all together Amen, Jesus has it all together. I like how amen I like how paul says this the apostle paul. He says him who thinks he stands I like how he points out you think you stand and you ain't standing on anything You think you got it all together. You ain't got nothing together. You think you're all right. You ain't all right I hope you don't think you're all right right now I'm all right in Jesus. That's about it You see just because you got a few months sober Just because oh, you know, I haven't done that in about six months or I got a year clean You know praise the lord Praise the lord. How many of us have a year more than a year clean? Amen. Amen. That's that's awesome Don't think you can stand Take heed listen even if we have a year clean 10 years clean or whatever it is or you know, I haven't lived that life in a long time I'm not going to go back to those things. Don't think that we got it all together Don't think that it's nothing's bad. It's going to happen to you You see because the enemy the devil when I say the enemy I'm talking about the devil the devil wants you to compromise The devil wants you to begin to go over to a life that uh, well, look you've been doing good for so long You deserve this you've been doing good for so long You deserve now to kind of take it easy. You've been way too committed to all of this and man Why don't you just chill out man play some fantasy football? Fantasy football, you know what fantasy football that's gambling. It really is You guys checking your phones right now, huh? Don't compromise. You see just because we got it all the That's what happens. We begin to think that we got it all together We begin to think that I'm going to be all right that it's not going to be a problem for me. Listen That's not true. So many people I know personally family members Have a family member who serving the lord for for a long period of time years And and um, you know, his kids grown they got his kids got older and they got out of the house and you know He was even even having home bible studies and all that stuff and you know what and then you know one night one night He and his wife they're in the car and they're like hey They went to casco and did their shopping and they went out to eat And after they went out to eat and they're walking out they said hey, let's just go over to this bar section right here Had a few drinks Okay Had a few drinks and you know, they get back in the car because we got the milk and everything in the car We got to take it home. They get out. They're on their way home About three blocks away from their home He runs over three people and kills them They're dead A mom a daughter and the cousin Three women all one family. They're dead You know Well, what's up? Take he lest you you know, if you think you stand if you think you got it all together and pay attention We don't None of us do See who knows when something like that's gonna happen. Ah Tommy that's gonna happen to me How do you know? Do you think that my family member thought the same thing? He did He's in prison now He's in prison now He's got grandkids He's not watching. He's not watching again to see them grow up or anything like that You see it's don't think that we got it all together You know and just because we're serving the lord or all these other things that oh, you know, I'm good or I can take a break You know that compromise don't do it Another family member Serving the lord actively serving the lord on a weekly basis You know Thought he had it all together Just had one little compromise after the next Now he's divorced. He's not serving in the church You know and and it's just his life is just in shambles and I don't even know what's going on in his life today You know, I don't know about you friends, but I take these these things are serious This is serious This life the life that jesus has given to you with the breath in your lungs Do you take it serious this life that god has given to you? Are we taking it serious? Are we taking it, you know to the place where you know god? I want to live my life for you. I know what you've delivered me from I know what i'm set free from lord I'm set free from drugs from alcohol from great from gangs from prisons And all these other lives and then live in my life in darkness and in evil god You have set me free I don't want to live that life no more and I want to be serious about this life that you have given to me Because I don't belong to myself anymore. I belong to you jesus or do you do we have that kind of mentality? Do we have that kind of passion to live for jesus today? And if not, I pray that we end up by the end of this day that we have that passion that we said, you know I'm listening I've paid attention to what god wants us to hear and what he wants me to know And I don't want to live that life any longer I want to live a life that's going to please the lord I know i'm not perfect, but I desire to please god and all that I do. Is that is that where we want to be? Amen I hope so Because I take these things serious. This is real These stories might of my family pray for my family This is real You know, this is real. Yeah, it happens I take these things serious and I understand I understand that we're all in this skin every single one of us We're all in the skin You know, I have the temptations just like everybody else has got temptations. We all got temptations You see, I understand what this is what it feels like And just like you Any single one of us we can fall into sin into deep sin into deep rebellion towards god But I don't want to do that. I desire not to lord. Keep me father I don't want to I want to pay attention to what you have and I know that I don't got it all together lord I need you because I don't want to fall. I don't want to be in that place But what happens what happens what happens when with people what happened with david what happened with with um With samson, what happened? What's going on? What's going on with other people? Maybe that you even know What happened to them? How did that happen? I believe a person gets to the point in their life where they might think oh, I am good man I'm good. They get to the point in their life where they think hey, I can handle this though It won't affect me like that That won't happen to me And when people begin to think that way My friend, let me tell you what that is. That's pride That's just straight out pride pride stinks It does you know when a prideful person walks through a room They're prideful and they're arrogant and all it's like oh man, dude. Who do you think you are? You know what I mean? We all people can identify that you can identify pride and arrogance in a person's life when they walk through the door It's like I'm being want to walk through the door with their feet now. Hey, what's up? Hey, I'm here You know what a jerk Pride towards even temptation Every single one of us we're all tempted We're all tempted every single one of us every day. We're tempted every day There's there's all this stuff man. We came in drive down the street with with with weird billboards and everything like that you know, I remember one time my my had some family members lived over in vegas and there was a Wedding okay, we'll go and and we're driving and we're trying to look where we're going and man All these billboards man a bus gets in front of me and there's a naked person on there It's like ah, babe. I got to close my eyes and drive, you know She's like, okay make a right No, just I mean left, you know anyways You see the temptation For lust the temptation for pride the temptation to get high the temptation to get drunk the temptation to to behave like Oh, I'm not gonna tell anybody tell me how to live my life. It's my life. I want to live it how I want to you know There's a temptation to live that like that all the time We can't think that we're okay We're not we need jesus We need jesus and my friends we need his word Amen, it's the power of his word that changes a person's life It's not a amen You want to change we want to help people listen. I can't make people change You know, it don't look to a pastor to change you don't even look to a church to change you We need to look to jesus. We need to look to the power of his word and take he to his word That's the only thing that can change a person's life. Amen Praise the lord. We need to take heed to god's word Listen, i'm gonna close with this if we take heed According to god's word Our way will be cleansed som 119 John the gospel of john chapter 15 verse 3 in Ephesians 5 verse 26 The word of god hidden in our hearts hidden in our hearts keeps us from sin Psalm 119 11 god's word is is our source of strength some 19 28 Hearing god's word builds our faith in us romans 10 verse 17 The word of god works effectively in those who believe in first Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13 The word of god is our source of growth first peter chapter 2 verse 2 and first carinthians chapter 2 You see we need to go to god's word We need to take heed to what god is calling us to do We need to take heed. We need to pay attention. We need to listen to the exhortation We need to listen to to the to the correction and to the counsel that god has for us We need to look at the examples that god has given to us in his word and not only in his word But also to other godly people that we can look up to and we can admire and say wow I don't want to do what he did I don't want to live like that. I want to make those choices I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to go through that God you've already you've delivered me from so much. I don't want to put myself into that And so god will then say well then you better listen homie In other words take heed take heed pay attention And receive everything that god has I don't know where you're at today my friends. I don't know what's going on in your life I don't know the drama. I don't know the dilemmas I don't know the challenges or the circumstances or even the consequences that you're dealing with some of you probably I'm on probation man. You know or this or whatever the case is. I don't know but god does know And what I want to tell you today is this Take heed Listen to what god has to say to you Because he loves you And he demonstrated that love there on the cross that while we were yet sinners He died for us Because of his love that was his demonstration of love He loves you don't ever think that he doesn't love you amen